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The mood among Afghans over leaked U.S. documents outlining Pakistan’s collaboration with the Taliban wasn’t one of surprise Monday but jubilation.

For many Afghans, it was an “I told you so” moment after lawmakers have pointed to Pakistan for nearly a decade as a main source of support for the Taliban.

But what Afghan President Hamid Karzai does with this moment is what matters most, say parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai and Gen. Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the defense ministry. “This is a golden opportunity for Karzai. He can now say ‘we told you all along’ to NATO and demand more support and funding,” Mrs. Barakzai says.

Mr. Karzai’s faith in the U.S.-led war here is wavering and his confrontational approach to Pakistan has been ditched for softer words of late. Afghan officials say Mr. Karzai is trying to forge a better relationship with Pakistan, worried about coalition forces withdrawing from Afghanistan while the Taliban insurgency strengthens. Read More »

Indian officials have long claimed that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, maintains ties with the Taliban and has helped orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan in recent years. New Delhi has at times been frustrated that Washington hasn’t taken its concerns more seriously.

Now India has some more ammunition to back up its assessment, buried in thousands of pages of leaked U.S. military documents about the war in Afghanistan. They paint a picture of current and former Pakistani ISI operatives who met secretly with Taliban militants, helped create a network of suicide bombers, and schemed to plan attacks.

“Whatever has come out has vindicated what we’ve been saying all along,” one Indian official said. “We’ve been saying this since the beginning.” India is concerned about Pakistan gaining too large a role in Afghanistan or being used as a conduit for negotiations with militants, given the links New Delhi believes the ISI has with those very groups.

Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, a retired chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, is singled out by name in WikiLeaks documents as having helped the Taliban and al Qaeda strike U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It’s a long-standing accusation that’s been repeatedly made by some U.S. officials, and strenuously denied by Gen. Gul. Other U.S. officials dispute it, too, and say he is nothing more than an aging rabble rouser with virulently anti-American views, hardly an oddity in Pakistan.

That certainly is the public persona he cultivates today in Pakistan, where he’s often seen on television predicting the failure of the U.S. enterprise in Afghanistan.

He’s also always eager to speak with foreign journalists. The last time I spoke with him was at his home in Rawalpindi, a city adjacent to Islamabad where Pakistan’s army is based. I’ve seen U.S. media reports portray the house as some kind of secret terror lair. It’s not. If anything, the scene that afternoon at Gen. Gul’s home was more Monty Python than James Bond. Read More »

The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people. Read More »